Google’s first retail store opened in the heart of the posh Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan at 10 a.m. Thursday.
While Google has experimented with pop-up venues before, the new shop represents its first intended permanent installation. (Earlier plans to turn a floating barge in San Francisco Bay into a Google Glass showroom fizzled, as did that flopped face-computer.)
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The Google Store is in a ground-floor storefront at 76 9th Avenue at the base of Google’s New York City headquarters, the former site of a Port Authority terminal. Across the street is Chelsea Market, a mall Google bought for $2.4 billion in 2019.
Due to a miscommunication with Google’s public relation team, this reporter lucked into a private tour of the shop on Tuesday. You can view Google’s own polished walk-through on YouTube here.
The showroom features interactive display cases, demo rooms, and tables and walls lined with Google hardware products. Among the wares are Pixel phones and earbuds, Nest thermostats, Fitbit wristbands, and Chromebook laptops.
The venue has a homier, cozier, and comparatively warmer vibe than the minimalist Apple Store, with its mostly glass and chrome aesthetic. Cork furniture is arranged between hickory walls and oak tables—all sustainably sourced, I’m told—in ways that imitate apartment life, lending an air of hygge.
Three central “scenes” echo the interior design of a home. There’s a living room, a kitchen area, and a children’s playroom. Strewn about are books on design, houseplants, knick-knacks and, of course, Google products.
Walls display devices such as Nest-branded smart speakers, thermostats, and security cameras next to Chromecast TV dongles. Pixel phones—including the $700 Pixel 5 and $350 Pixel 4a (or $500 with 5G network equipped)—also hang nearby.
While electronics are the store’s main course, more humdrum merchandise appears on the menu. There are colorful, Google-branded tote bags, socks, notebooks, and basketballs. (The bike is not for sale, sadly.)
If the Apple Store has the Genius Bar, then Google has a “here to help” hub. The circular desk recalls the central information kiosk at Grand Central Station.
Window shoppers can view semi-transparent LED screen-fronted boxes lining the perimeter of the store. These are part-video advertisements, part display cases.
People who venture inside the shop—who aren’t lured away by the popular Apple Store that’s just across the street—can enter demo compartments where they may try out Google products, like its Stadia video game service. To gain entry, just wave your hand in front of the “palm” icon.
One room, a walk-in photobooth, lets people test out the Pixel phone’s camera in a low-light setting. Afterward, you can send copies to yourself (as I did).
Another demo consists of a triptych-screened computer that translates people’s speech into many different languages. When the device prompted me to answer the question: What quality do you value most in your friends? I replied “fun.” The computer misheard me to say “ton.” (My muffled mouth was mask-covered, to be fair.)
Easter egg: Google Chrome’s “There is no Internet connection” T-Rex livens up the place. Even amid the relentless rise of e-commerce, brick-and-mortar is, apparently, not going extinct.
A note of thanks to Nathan Allen, Google’s head of store design and special projects, for showing me around.
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